Describe Description

Today's entry depends heavily on personal preference. As far as I know, there's no right or wrong way to go about describing things. Some writers are very good at it and some very bad. Others don't even try, and others still will only describe things in a simple, off-hand way that gives the imagination just enough to get by.

And then there's the difference between the descriptions of people versus places and things. When it comes to writing people, some people like to go in full-bore and illustrate a person down to the last thread of string dangling from a tweed elbow, while others need only throw the barest of ideas our way to convey what they mean. Strangely, others can get by without even mentioning a person in terms of their physical attributes, relying instead upon personalities and attitudes. This gives us an approximation of a character instead of a solid picture, which has some benefits. In most books, the main characters themselves are left almost completely abstract, letting the reader fill in the blanks. When the writer actually does have to describe something to us, their addition is (usually) seamlessly integrated in with our own ideas of the person. I know I cite this a lot, but in Harry Potter, Harry is loosely described as a “skinny, scrawny boy with floppy hair and a scar on his forehead.” Other than that, Harry looks however we want him to. Interestingly, the description was enough that when I saw Daniel Radcliffe in the movies, I thought, “sure enough, that's what he looks like!”
Some writers have taken such advantage of this that books have been written in which the reader has no idea what gender the character is, or even that the characters were actually a family of birds. At least, not until the last page.

Now it's time for some teaching examples to help ease your mind into mine. What follows are depictions of characters listed in each of the ways I've described, starting from the least detail to the most.

Low detail personality sketch:
Simon always looked over-dressed, but upon seeing the terrified expression on his face, one could imagine that his clothes were the only thing helping him believe he was suited for the job.

Medium detail personality sketch:
One further understood Simon's expression upon meeting his boss, Mr. Maddigan, who only ever just seemed to be keeping his rage under control. Maybe his rage stemmed from being so short, or because of the fact that he had gone bald much earlier than everyone else in his family. In fact, some people believed that Maddigan was compensating for the loss of hair on his head by growing an incredibly thick mustache.

High detail personality sketch, minus physical description:
However, to fully understand Maddigan, one had to meet his wife Patricia. She and him had married quite late in life, and so they were both quite set in their ways. Patricia and her husband lived in a house too large for both of them, but neither were brave enough to say anything. The house mostly belonged to Patricia, anyway. She had taken it over like a virus. She fancied herself to be quite good at embroidery, despite the fact that she wasn't. This was probably because she disliked using patterns. The entire house was filled with things she had embroidered; pillows, blankets, quilts and clothes; her thirst for sewing was insatiable. Patricia constantly lost her needles in the carpet, only to be found later by Mr. Maddigan's squashy feet.

Low detail sketch, with physical:
But the whole reason Patricia had gotten into sewing was because of a woman named Veronica Green.
Veronica had been a supermodel in the 1960s, and still behaved as if she were twenty-one. Quite headstrong, she never dressed in anything except low-cut shirts and short skirts, much to the disgust of everyone around her. Seeing a sixty-five year-old woman dressed in this way is quite distressing, after all, no matter how good she looks for her age. She also happened to be excellent at sewing.

Medium detail, with physical:
Veronica had a sister who was considerably younger than her. A whole ten years, in fact. Her name was Melanie. She had held up much better than Veronica; she practically lived at the gymnasium, and so her skin had stayed tight on her, unlike Veronica. Melanie looked even younger than she was; her predisposition toward not-smiling had kept the crow's feed away from her angular face, and her stress-free life of luxury kept the white hairs at bay. Just to be safe, she never let her hair go more than two weeks without a fresh dye. The argument could be made that she paid more attention to her hair than to her own children, of which she had four.

High detail, with physical:
That day, Melanie's youngest daughter Anna had to visit the grocery store to buy milk, which was where she met Simon.
From Simon's point of view, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen entered his checkout line. Her thick Brown hair fell around her face like a Greek goddess, highlighting her high cheekbones and vivid green eyes. Although she was wearing gray hospital scrubs, Simon still found her incredibly alluring. From Anna's point of view, Simon was quite attractive. Horrified, she realized she hadn't looked in a mirror for the entire day.

I feel like I'm not succeeding with "high detail." Maybe I shouldn't call it that.

My personal preference seems to lean toward describing people in terms of their personality instead of their physical qualities. I've always thought that if I can describe someone and make them seem attractive, I can wriggle away from the commitment of meticulously listing their physical characteristics. Personally I don't enjoy writing about flowing brown hair or high cheekbones, because those traits aren't universally attractive. What if I was raised in the Middle East and found that kind of look to be too American? Or if I was from Jamaica and preferred my women to be browner?

This is to say nothing of describing locations. There's just too much for one blog. Try a few different styles and see what you're good at.

Flat Stanley's Missing Dimension

Few people know how to write characters, especially new ones, so they write what (and usually who) they know: themselves and their friends.

I hate to keep coming back to this, but Steven King's On Writing says it well. He says that you want your characters to talk to and surprise you (paraphrased.)

But how are characters going to talk to you? Aren't you writing them!? You can't surprise yourself for the same reason you can't tickle yourself: because you know it's coming.

The trick to getting out of this trap is to approach your characters differently. Instead of saying, “what would I do in this situation?” you ask, “what would this character do?”

The trick is to make the character contain as little of your own personality as possible. Would you normally high-five someone after thwarting a villain? Make sure you characters don't. Do you hate classical music? Make your character enjoy it. This will stretch your imagination and help you start think like somebody else. This way, when you put your character into an uncomfortable situation, you're already thinking like him and hopefully while you're inside his head, he'll come up with something that you wouldn't.

This is tricky because you might fall into the trap of making your character so far removed from yourself that you no longer have things in common. If this happens then it will be much harder to write. Think of this: You want your character to be your friend, not your enemy.

As for the minor (read: Not main) characters, if everyone's getting along all the time then you've got some more problems. People don't like reading this kind of thing. It gets boring after a while. Conflict breeds interest, as the saying goes. It's very true. Watch any movie or television show and you'll see that the main characters don't always get along. If they do, then they'll at least have rough patches in their relationships. The audience is more interested in seeing how the characters resolve these conflicts. I don't mean to say your characters should be constantly fighting, because that would be just as bad.

This doesn't mean that they're in violent conflict, either; it just means that don't see eye-to-eye in All Things.

“But my characters still seem flat, William,” you might say, “I've followed all of your ridiculous William-Rules and I've come up short yet again! You have failed me, sir!”

Of course your characters are going to be a little flat at first. It's hard to figure out how to make characters interact with each other without seeming like a pained exchange between two sixth-graders. Some authors get it right away and some never get it. Look at the New York Times Bestseller list and I guarantee you'll find some books on there that are actually quite horribly written.

I'm not saying that after your tenth book your characters will magically gain another dimension and jump to life. It doesn't happen this way. Like everything else, it takes loads of practice. If you want to see examples of great characters, I recommend reading the Harry Potters, anything by Diana Wynne Jones, most anything by Eric Nylund, Charles Dickens or Oscar Wilde. If you like television, watch anything created by J.J. Abrams. Alias and Lost are particularly strong in this department, because their characters are constantly in conflict with each other. In J.J.'s Star Trek reboot he took (what many people would call) stuffy, boring and characters and made them amazin'. And that's to say nothing of the phenomenal Fringe.

What's the secret to making characters seem like real people? Their mistakes, overreactions and neuroticism. But what does that mean?

Lets take Spiderman as an example. Unlike other more supermanly heroes, Spidey is almost always being kicked around, berated or otherwise abused. He hardly ever gets what he wants (Mary Jane, a paycheck, the bad guy) and when he does, it usually costs him something else (uncle Ben, a date). He's almost the perfect picture of tragedy, except for the fact that he's so funny and lighthearted. He's constantly cracking jokes and making fun of villains.

You might say that his imperfections make him so fun to read (if you read comics) or watch in the cartoons or the first two Spiderman movies.

If you took him too far in the imperfect hero direction, he'd become Dexter, and many people don't want that.

If he didn't have these weaknesses, he'd just be a guy in a suit saving people (Spidey, not Dexter). Everybody has to have weaknesses, and not just super heroes. These weaknesses make the character better, because them they have the opportunity to improve over the course of the story (or series or movie).

“Okay,” you might be saying, “I've got the formula down:

Weak characters

Personal journey

Exploitable weaknesses

Character growth

Sad but funny

I'm gonna go and write my story, and I'm gonna make a million dollars from it!”

Hold the phone. The formula you've just created could be the same that Woody Allen uses in his “movies.” You can't just go and make all of your characters like this. In fact, maybe you shouldn't follow my advice at all. Certainly not all of it at once.

At this rate your character is gonna be so weak and exploitable that he would no longer be fun to read. What I'm really trying to explain is depth.

With anything, take my advice in moderation. You want your characters to gel with others; to compliment each other's personality. Don't make anybody perfect, unless your goal is to make a person annoyingly heroic.